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RACINE, Wisconsin (Reuters) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain's campaign accused Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday of playing racial politics in some of the most biting back-and-forth of the presidential campaign.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury on Thursday said it blacklisted six more companies and 13 individuals linked with Colombia's FARC guerrillas in an effort to squeeze the group's financing from narcotics sales.

Corrects in paragraph 11 to Robert Spellane, a Democrat, from Paul Loscocco, a Republican.

DAKAR (Reuters) - Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Thursday he was "fairly satisfied" with talks with President Robert Mugabe's party to end a political crisis, and said a Monday, August 4 deadline was "not inflexible".

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W., Virginia (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday that the latest economic data showed the foundations of the U.S. economy are strong.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - The Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers held talks in Colombo on Thursday against a background of an increase in border skirmishes and bomb attacks on Indian cities that threaten a sluggish peace process.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - A man sleeping on a Greyhound bus as it rolled across the Canadian Prairies was killed and decapitated by his seatmate as horrified passengers fled to safety in the night, witnesses and police said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday held out the prospect of further troop reductions in Iraq later this year as he hailed a new "degree of durability" in security gains there.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidates have spent some $50 million and aired more than 100,000 TV ads since the start of the general election campaign in early June, far outpacing the rate of the 2004 campaign, a report showed on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Foreign aid agencies are slowly returning to address Iraq's massive humanitarian woes following a fall in violence in the country to four-year lows.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's highest court on Thursday rejected ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma's attempt to stop seized evidence being used against him in a corruption trial.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's trade chief Peter Mandelson said on Wednesday the United States helped to bring down global trade talks this week when its negotiators shunned a compromise proposal at a key juncture in the talks.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Three months after Cyclone Nargis slammed into army-run Myanmar, people in the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta are still in dire need of food and clean water, hampering efforts to rebuild their lives, aid agencies say.

KIEV (Reuters) - Floods in western Ukraine have killed 30 people and prompted the evacuation of nearly 18,000, officials said on Thursday, after five days of rain caused rivers to spill over into villages and farmland.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur on Thursday in a resolution that Washington criticized for raising concerns about moves to indict Sudan's president for genocide.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Reuters urged the U.S. military on Thursday to immediately release an Iraqi cameraman working for the news organization or to publicly produce evidence to justify his detention.

MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 13 people, including two women, were killed in clashes between troops and militants on Thursday in Pakistan's Swat valley, police said, taking the death toll in days of fighting to nearly 50.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The United States has accused members of Pakistan's main spy agency of tipping off al Qaeda-linked militants before U.S. missile attacks on targets in Pakistani tribal lands, Pakistan's defense minister said.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's trade chief Peter Mandelson said on Wednesday the United States helped to bring down global trade talks this week when its negotiators shunned a compromise proposal at a key juncture in the talks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday unveiled an overhaul of intelligence powers that concentrates power in the national intelligence director and drew immediate criticism from Congress for failing to consult on the changes.